Transfer matrix modeling of a tensioned piezo-solar hybrid energy harvesting ribbon

Abstract

This paper proposes a multifunctional compliant structure that can harvest electrical power from both incident sunlight and ambient mechanical energy including wind flow or vibration. The energy harvesting device consists of a slender, ribbon-like, flexible thin film solar cell that is laminated with piezoelectric patches. The harvester is mounted in longitudinal tension and subjected to a transverse wind flow to excite flow-induced aeroelastic vibrations. This paper formulates an analytic model of the bending dynamics of the device. We present a Transfer Matrix formulation that also accounts for the changes in natural frequencies and mode shapes of the system when subjected to axial loads in a beam. It also observed that mode shape obtained using TMM formulation shows numerical stability even for very high tensile loads providing results consistent with the geometric boundary conditions applied at the ends of a beam. This article also discusses about structurally modeling a piezo -solar energy harvester using TMM methodology, where a thin clampedclamped solar film is bonded with piezo patches having a much higher bending stiffness. Additionally, the effect of axial tension on the mode shape of the thin host structure of the piezo-solar ribbon is presented and it is shown how this tension can be used advantageously to affect the strain distribution of the entire structure and introduce higher strains at the piezo patches.

Analysis of tension-tunable clamped–clamped piezoelectric beams for harvesting energy from wind and vibration

“…Transfer-matrix method (TMM) is employed to obtain the tensioned mode shapes of the doubly clamped structure with geometric and material discontinuities as well as applied axial preload tension. The authors have previously shown how a doubly clamped flexible beam with applied tensile preload and undergoing transverse bending vibration could be effectively modeled using TMM (Chatterjee and Bryant, 2015). This article extends that model to include torsional deformations with applied axial load using TMM formulation and verifies the same with finite element (FE) simulation.…”

“…When compared to FE, TMM is computationally more efficient as increasing the number of segments in TMM analysis does not result in an increased matrix size, unlike increasing the number of nodes in FE analysis. In the recent past, TMM was applied to piezoelectric cantilevered structures undergoing bending deformations, and the results compared very well with FE simulations (Chatterjee and Bryant, 2015;Wickenheiser, 2013).…”

Aeroelastic-photovoltaic ribbons for integrated wind and solar energy harvesting

“…The proposed hybrid device could mitigate the dust accumulation by shaking off the particulates during aeroelastically induced vibrations. The authors have previously investigated the modeling of structural dynamics based on the transfer matrix method [20] for analysis of clamped-clamped piezoelectric and solar ribbon structures with material and geometric discontinuities. This work experimentally investigates the energy harvesting capabilities of such a proof-of-concept hybrid harvester using simultaneous wind tunnel and solar simulator illumination testing and presents the power output and interaction characteristics of both wind and solar energy harvesting.…”